Tea in the Woods.

[catch]

"Oh, no," Catch says with a short little laugh. "I'd k-k-kiss Ser Glenn!" The addled man finds the idea monumentally funny, though he does little more than rock back on his heels and utter hiccuping laughs, crumbs getting stuck into his throat until he manages to wash them away with a swig of icy tea. Catch seems surprised that his tea has gone cold, and Cinnabar must wait patiently as Catch inspects his cup, suspecting some change, but not knowing what it could be. He thinks, and he likes the cold tea better than the hot.

As Catch prods at his cup with a long finger, he listens to Cinnabar, who asks him to do a thing that Catch cannot do, at least not very well. Imagine. Put himself in the shoes, or pants, or skin of another, but not in the way they were supposed to mean. Everyone was always telling him he shouldn't put on skins. Well, then, he should imagine that thing. He takes the images, and he works as carefully as any artisan craftsman, building the illusion, concentrating so hard that the tiniest stray-thought leaf could shatter the stillness of the Lake of his mind.

People have done these things, his friends, offering him promises and good-things. Promises could be broken, and things could be broken. As he thinks, as he imagines, Catch's thick lips slowly turn down until he is scowling, his dark-right eye darker, his moon-left brooding.

"What would th-th-they want, Serjo?" the addled man finally asks, his tone uncharacteristically derivative, caused by the foul mood that plagued him suddenly. Part of him must have suddenly grasped what Glenn and Elliot, and so many others, have been warning him about, but that part could not reconcile with the others, and so only bits of it scattered across his brains like so much rotted meat. "To be p-p-put back together? To c-c-crack the world and sing the Old Songs until the stars j-j-jump, like fleas?"

[Cinnabar]

Hm. Perhaps this is not something the Governor needs to know. "I think Miss Olwak might have things to say about that." But there's a grin to go with it, before he drains the last of his tea and reaches for a cake to replace it.

Patient as the addled man investigates his own tea, patient as he works carefully on the task set to him, the imagining of lies, deceit, betrayal, and that darkening expression makes it eminently clear when he has succeeded. To that question, though, Cinnabar can only shrug.

"I don't know. Perhaps the Old Songs, as you say. Perhaps something else. Perhaps they recognise you have considerable power, and that alone is enough to interest them." Picking his cake apart, eating it a morsel at a time to make it last.

"Perhaps they think there are more things you can do, things which you've forgotten but could be made to remember. Perhaps there are people they wish to harm, and think they might wield you as a weapon. Perhaps they'd want to dig the power out of your head for their own use." Disagreeable ideas, detailed with distaste. There's no enjoyment to be had in such considerations, but to make the addled man at least aware of them is... well, a necessity. Itself a poisonous word, a poisonous idea that can be used to justify all manner of atrocity. Like this careful, deliberate murder of innocence.

"They know you are too strong to be bound with chains or bars or locked doors or stout walls, so instead they seek to steer you with gentle threads, false kindnesses and the appearance of friendship, wrapping you snug like a fly in a web." Speaking with quiet but emphatic tones, a keen watchfulness in his gaze - is Catch taking this in? Is he listening, understanding? And how is he reacting? That's the risk of this role, the bringer of unpleasant truths.

"To discover such a thing, that someone you thought a friend was not - that would hurt you hm? And that's what Ser Elliot fears, because he does care about you."

[catch]

"I d-d-don't think that would hurt," Catch counters, after his thoughts had time to trickle down the worm-paths. It was a petty answer, delivered in a tone that was as distracted as it was sharp. Catch puts his cup down, carefully, in the spring's rich earth. He puts his hand son top of his knees, and stares at Cinnabar, long and hard, his thoughts impossible to decipher, impossible to know. Madness was not the only way to become unpredictable or unreadable. His eyes quiver and flicker over Cinnabar, over the tea and cakes, and the delightful little stove.

He is working things out. When he had been told these things before, his madness held him in such firmness, an impossible grip that he could not escape or deny. Now his madness seemed an optional thing, a refuge that could be drawn up like a cloak at whim. Now, as Cinnabar talked to him under the dapple-coated leaves, Catch thought, and he thought hard.

"Serjo," he finally says, his sing-song voice dripping with the sound of bees that had once so plagued him, and Catch rocks forward, onto the balls of his feet, to match his wide-eyed gaze with Cinnabar's. "A pretty, little cha-chairs, and a handsome t-t-table, and cat-m-m-mint plants. Are th-these things sweet? Sweet, little th-th-threads?"

[Cinnabar]

"It does hurt, Catch."

That sudden inscrutability is a wall, a mask, and one which has Cinnabar paying closer attention than ever; thoughts and emotions no longer flags blaring in the wind, no longer clear and easily-read, so now he is instead forced to seek out smaller things, subtleties and nuances, the direction of that mismatched glance. A small nod, approval as the man thinks, as he absorbs the meaning in what he has been told, as he makes connections.

He does not flinch or draw back as Catch leans forward, though he does stop dismantling that cake for now, a small flick to clear crumbs from his fingertips. Not even blinking, expression carefully neutral.

"They might be, if you let them. But knowing what they are is enough to break them." He has a momentary image of Glenn Burnie - a younger Glenn Burnie, mapmaker rather than Governor - giving him a look of frustrated incredulity over some moment of unspeakable rashness, and it tugs a brief smile at the corners of his mouth.

"Think about what had happened shortly before that. Your state of mind at the time. Consider why these things were offered, what purpose might have been served by spinning those threads."

[catch]

Consider, yes. Look back at vague memories, dripping with madness, and examine, surmise, make the attempts at guessing that a natural man could do with little difficulty. As children, they do not know what is flattery, what is bribery, they take what is offered in greed and pride, thinking that they, themselves, must be wonderful people, good people, to deserve such gifts. Some, nobles and rich-men, must never need rise above the simple concept.

It bubbles, now, into Catch's brains, inflaming them, a constant itch that he cannot scratch. But he keeps it inside, carefully inside. It will not creep from his scar, at least, not yet, as Catch pretends to coolly study Cinnabar as he thinks all this.

"I'm g-g-going to th-think about this," he finally says, because the silence has stretched on for too long; the man, in his ragged clothes, snakes out a long arm to grab what remains of the cakes, pulling them to him possessively. They should not be gifts. Gifts are not things that are taken, and while broken bits of brain whisper of 'stealing', and how stealing is wrong, Catch studiously ignores them, unfolds himself to his feet and hovers over Cinnabar.

"I'll have th-these cakes. You, you'll let Ser Elliot know we spoke?"

[Cinnabar]

Little seeds very carefully planted in the blackness inside Catch's head, little germs of ideas, of things to think upon. Now it only remains to hope that they don't grow into a tangle of briars and brambles; the addled man has enough of those already.

"It's a lot to think about, I know." They'd covered a lot of ground, lurching from this to that, but at least Catch had been willing to listen. Head inclined, a casual wave of his open palm making it clear that Catch is entirely welcome to the cakes.

"I'll tell him, yes, if I see him before you do." He'd need to thank the once-squire for his recommendation to Catch as well. Things have gone... moderately well. Cinnabar was still in possession of all of his limbs, and Catch had stayed long enough for a good conversation.

"I'd like to talk with you again, Catch, once you've had time to think. See how well the anchor works, that sort of thing. I'll see if I can find your pack, too." A glance for the sky as if to gauge the time of day, or maybe get his bearings, then back to the addled man.

"Three days? I'll bring tea - different tea, maybe - and we can talk some more." A shrug and an easy grin. "Or not, as you prefer." Sitting up now, collecting the tea cups together, extinguishing the little stove at last. A thought strikes him after a moment, and he nods to the prize that the addled man clutches to his chest.

"If I might have that basket and cloth back when you're done with them, though, that'd be appreciated. They're not really mine to give away."

[catch]

"Yes," Catch says, without entirely know to what he is agreeing to. Days were... difficult. Catch could count, as long as he did not think about it, and Three was an easy number to grasp. Time, however, was not; inform him to be here, three days from now, and the addled man might show up the next day, or in three weeks, or three years, though that was unlikely. More likely, then, Catch would simply smell Cinnabar out, if the man came again. He would taste the air until tea and cakes came to his tongue, and follow it to its source.

The addled man jigs the captured basket up and down, and that is his affirmation that he has heard, and will try to bring the basket back. He's not interested in the basket itself, just the contents, and he will have to remember to bring it all back, and in good shape. "You are... a st-st-strange person," Catch says, uncertain of what to say, and blurting out the first thing that comes to his head. Finally, after another moment of indecision, the addled man wheels about and pads into the forest, where a long moment of silence would restore the animal-sounds, and life, to the forest that has been so deathly still.